They've arrived — ancient papyri from an Egyptian excavation conducted for U.C. Berkeley more than a century ago. The documents are on campus today after a long journey worthy of a mystery novel. Some of it, 4,000 years old. The papyri was excavated by archaeologist George A. Reisner, who was devoted to distraction.

Some academic presentations are more elaborate than others. With that in mind, one should not discount the importance of this one at U.C. Berkeley's Morrison Library. It was 105 years in the making.

Dr. Donald Mastronarde: "A lot of archaeology, you're looking at trash."

Dr. Donald Mastronarde, followed a modern paper trail in bringing these ancient Egyptian writings to U.C. Berkeley, where they belonged in the first place...

Also contains a video clip.

Documents Contain 4,000 Years Of History, Wayne Freedman, ABC 7 News, USA, November 01, 2006.

cf. The Centre for the Tebtunis papyri.

cf. On this blog previously: Egyptian scrolls finally head for Californian home.

Emily Teeter said Tut-mania didn't begin until after museums started exploiting ancient Egyptian artefacts with travelling shows.

Teeter, an Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, gave a lecture titled "Tutankhamun: How His Treasures Changed Our World," Thursday in the Hibben Centre. She discussed the global impact of the discovery of King Tut's tomb.

She said the tomb's discovery changed people's expectations of the museum experience and the government and businesses' function in the exchange of artefacts...

Discovery launches King Tut craze, Anna Hampton, The Daily Lobo, ???, USA, November 03, 2006.

Queen Hatshepsut (often better known as Hot Chicken Soup) seized control from her stepson, Thutmose, on the grounds that Egypt deserved better than a pharaoh with such a goofy name. She ruled for 20 years before Thutmose found enough people who hated a female ruler more than his name and led a revolt to retrieve his throne.

But Hatshepsut had plenty of time to institute some fine traditions. The only female pharaoh began the festival of drunkenness, which we now celebrate as "Girls Gone Wild"...

Party Hearty with Hatshepsut, Cal Lanier, Football Fans for Truth, USA, October 31, 2006, via ArchaeoBlog.

cf. Earlier on this blog: Sex and booze figured in Egyptian rites.

Yale's Egyptology program may not yet have a large presence on campus, but it will soon have a home overseas as construction continues on the Yale Institute in Egypt.

Construction of the many components of the institute — which will be spread across various sites west of the Nile River — began last year and is now picking up pace. Egyptologist John Darnell said living spaces, storage work spaces and expedition headquarters to be used during fieldwork will be built in the western desert region of Egypt by the end of this academic year. He said the institute also hopes to soon open offices in Cairo and Luxor. The other major component of the program's growth will be the expansion of the institute's Web site to include scholarly accounts of fieldwork in Egypt, Darnell said.

Darnell, who is the chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, said the increased infrastructure will make it easier for students to travel to Egypt to participate in expeditions, which he said are extremely important for anyone who wants to study and work in Egyptology...

Institute boosts Egypt program, Kanya Balakrishna, Yale Daily News, Connecticut, USA, November 01, 2006.

Humanity's extraordinary signature on the Earth's landscape is about to be celebrated at the British Museum with more than 350 images, each capturing ways of sending the same message to future generations: "We were here." The slender scribble of the Great Wall, a citadel like a plum pudding, the tree-covered, keyhole-shaped tomb of a Japanese emperor; they make you want to reach out and touch, running your finger over the lumps and lines.

Georg Gerster, the Swiss photographer responsible for these images, couldn't do that. He started compiling his unique record of the Past from Above in 1963, clinging to helicopter struts, fighting camera wobble as light aircraft bucked and yawed, and losing valuable dawn and evening light explaining to control towers that he wasn't a spy...

Pharaoh Rameses II, for instance, had to be content to imagine the magnificent pattern of the Ramesseum, his mortuary temple dating from the 13th-century BC, from 1,000ft up. He had only his architect's plans and the vast but partial views available from the flat desert ground surrounding it. Visitors to the museum see not only the bird's-eye view, but the striking effects of later history on the monument - and the hundreds of others alongside it in the exhibition. There is demolition, excavation, rebuilding and the gentle smothering by nature with silt, sand, trees or vines...

History from on high, The Guardian, UK, November 02, 2006.

Museums in Egypt are entering a new era. New institutions are being constructed, and there is a change from the concept of museums as storage facilities to modern museums with educational and cultural messages. In conjunction with this development, associations for "Friends" of various museums, including the Islamic Museum, Coptic Museum, and the Cairo Museum, have been organised. For the first time, each of these museums also has educational programmes that teach archaeology and art to both adults and children.

We are building a number of new national museums. There will be national museums at Sohag and Suez; two others will be opened next month at Rashid and Al-Arish. A national museum has already been opened in Alexandria. Specialised museums are also being built, such as the Textile Museum in Old Cairo, scheduled to open soon. The Akhenaten Museum in Minya, the Mosaic Museum in Alexandria, the Portrait Museum in Fayoum, and the Coin Museum at the Citadel are other examples of this type of museum.

Site museums are yet another category. A beautiful site museum at Saqqara, the Imhotep Museum, was opened recently by Mrs Mubarak. Soon a site museum to be known as the Crocodile Museum will be opening at the temple of Kom Ombo.

The great museums of Egypt are also being renovated as part of our overall plan...

Dig Days: Egyptian Museums, Zahi Hawass, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 818, November 01 - 07, 2006.

One of the most important achievements during the Nubia Salvage Operations under the auspices of UNESCO in the 1960s was unquestionably the discovery of an ancient cathedral in Faras which contained wall paintings preserved in excellent condition. As a result of four years of investigation and conservation by a Polish mission under the direction of K Michaowski, these magnificent and unique paintings can today be seen in special galleries in the National Museums of Warsaw and Khartoum.

The discovery can be regarded on a par with the most important archaeological discoveries of the second half of the 20th century, and certainly among the most significant achievements of the Nubian campaign. Once the architectural decorations and inscriptions of the church had been studied, including the cathedral's foundation stela and the famous List of Bishops of Pachoras, the conserved wall paintings can be said to have had a considerable impact on the establishment of Nubiology as an independent discipline.

Conservator Józef Gazy single-handedly managed to devise a system by which to protect and, at the same time, remove no fewer than 120 paintings from the ancient mud-brick walls of the cathedral and transport them safely to their new destinations in Poland and Sudan. Polish restorers working under Hanna Jêdrzejewska in Warsaw and Gazy in Khartoum then completed the conservation process. The paintings were mounted on new ground, and the innovative technical approach which was developed for the project permitted easy transport of individual wall paintings...

Polish activities upstream, Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 818, November 01 - 07, 2006.

Of more than 150 papers that researchers presented at the 11th International Conference of Nubian Studies, the largest group concerned recent studies with special emphasis on current rescue operations in the area of the Fourth Nile Cataract.

Organisers made an effort to bring together papers that would present an overview of the most important archaeological sites under excavation in recent years, those where significant discoveries have recently been made. The conference provided an excellent opportunity to review the achievements made in Nubian studies over the 34 years since the 2nd conference took place in Warsaw in 1972, and conference committee director W Godlewski made particular mention of Nabta Playa, Kerma-Doukki Gel, Naga, Banganarti and Dongola.

The programme was divided into plenary sessions held in the mornings and four parallel topical sessions presented in the afternoons. Panel discussions were held on selected topics including official and vernacular languages in the Nubian kingdoms, representations of rulers or religious ceremonies conducted inside sacral buildings and, as Godlewski was quick to point out, "an evaluation of the international activities in the Fourth Cataract region constituted one of the hottest topics discussed at the conference..."

All eyes on Nubia, Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 818, November 01 - 07, 2006.

Queen Sonja of Norway visited Egypt this week at the invitation of Mrs Suzanne Mubarak to attend the finale of the world's year-long celebration marking the centennial of the death of the great playwright Henrik Ibsen, launched last January in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. The festival has bee marked in 80 countries worldwide, with a total of about 8,000 events celebrating Ibsen's life and works. Egypt was chosen as the venue to host the closing of Ibsen's gala commemoration, with several prestigious arts activities being held in Cairo and Alexandria.

The stage at the feet of the Sphinx on the Giza Plateau provided a dramatic setting for a spectacular performance of Ibsen's world- acclaimed play Peer Gynt. The event was widely held to be not only the high spot of all the Egyptian cultural events of 2006, but also the greatest international performance in the year-long Ibsen commemoration. At the brilliant performance, in the presence of Mrs Mubarak and Queen Sonja along with a score of Norwegian and Egyptian top officials and ministers, Queen Sonja awarded Mrs Mubarak the Henrik Ibsen Foundation's award for her leading role in promoting cultural dialogue between all nations, her constant efforts to promote the various segments of culture, and her building of bridges to connect different civilisations. The award also honoured Mrs Mubarak for her support for the event, which also marked the 70th anniversary of Egyptian- Norwegian diplomatic ties.

The Giza performance, which was organised by Ibsen 2006 in collaboration with the Egyptian Tourism Authority, the Ministry of Culture and the Cairo Opera House, attracted more than 1,500 international visitors to the Egyptian capital...

Ibsen in Egypt, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 818, November 01 - 07, 2006.

A peak on the plateau

Last week, audiences were treated to two phenomenal performances of Henrik Ibsen's drama Peer Gynt, with music by Edvard Grieg, staged at the Sound and Light Theatre of the Giza plateau to mark Ibsen Year...

Ibsen in Egypt, Amal Choucri Catta, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 818, November 01 - 07, 2006.

The first necropolis for royal dentists ever found was discovered early this week in the shadow of Djoser's Step Pyramid in Saqqara. Nevine El-Aref visited the site and learnt that the Pharaohs' curse was not just a myth.

Early this month a pair of tomb raiders were inflicted with the Pharaohs' curse when they were apprehended while making an illicit attempt to dig a deserted area in the shadow of the Step Pyramid. They have since been jailed, but their illegal action in the Saqqara necropolis inadvertently led excavators to a very important discovery on the site. A necropolis dedicated to royal dentists of the Old Kingdom was revealed intact.

The necropolis dates back to the early fifth dynasty. "It was created to honour a chief dentist, E-E-Mery and two of his colleagues who treated the Pharaohs and their families," says Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), who led the excavation team...

A new bite for archaeologists, Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram, Egypt, Issue No. 818, November 01 - 07, 2006.

Two experts face redundancy after completion of a £384,000 improvement scheme at Swaffham museum because money for their salaries is running out.

Museum manager and curator Kate Ayres and education officer Elaine Brown face the axe because three-year grants to meet their pay cheques expire next February [2007].

Unless applications for new grants are successful, the museum will have to be run by unpaid helpers when it reopens early in 2007 after a two-year closure for improvements...

Work is also in progress on a new exhibition room dedicated to Egyptologist Howard Carter, who lived in Swaffham and discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt 1923.

This part of the project is being funded by a £25,000 grant from WREN, Waste Recycling Environmental Ltd, and other grants have come from the Heritage Lottery Fund as well as the town council...

Fixed link.

Museum experts face the axe, Watton & Swaffham Times, UK, November 01, 2006.